It's not you, it's the dishes

Practical, compelling, and often hilarious...The minute I finished the book, I started to experiment on my husband.

- Gretchen Rubin,author of The Happiness Project

One of the most delightful, clever and helpful books about marriage I’ve ever seen.

- Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed

The book is grounded in solid research, makes economics entertaining, and might just save a marriage or two.

- Bloomberg News

A convincing and creative case for how the dismal science can help reconcile marital disputes.

- Washington Post

The more you think about it, the more it makes perfect sense.

- Sunday Times

It’s not you, it’s the dishes!

Have you ever gone to the dark place after a fight about who does the dishes more often? Do you worry that your job is destroying your marriage? Have you ever sat up nights, remembering how much more fun married life used to be? Sex? That sounds vaguely familiar.

Enter IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S THE DISHES, the paperback edition of last year’s award-winning SPOUSONOMICS. A fresh and funny twist to standard relationship advice, the book shows how economics—yes, economics—is the key to a happy marriage.

Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, journalists from Newsweek and the New York Times, present a radical new idea: Every marriage is its own little economy, a business of two with a finite number of resources, tough tradeoffs and the inevitable booms and busts. With great wit, insight, and compelling stories from real-life couples, Szuchman and Anderson tackle the most common conflicts in domestic life.

Stay late at the office or rush home for dinner? Be honest about your mother-in-law or keep your mouth shut and smile? Let a cost-benefit analysis make the call.

Nagging getting you nowhere? Try finding a better incentive to get him to pay the bills on time.

Sex tonight or sex next month? Merely a question of supply and demand.

IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S THE DISHES cuts through the noise of emotions, egos and tired relationship cliches. Here at last is a smart, funny, refreshingly realistic, and deeply researched book that gets us one giant leap closer to solving the age-old riddle of a happy, healthy marriage.